Bengaluru: The Maharashtra government will send 50 leopards to Vantara, the Reliance-owned wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat, PTI reported on March 7. The reason cited is that this is an effort to reduce human-leopard conflict in some parts of Maharashtra.Conservationists and activists have questioned the need for this transfer. But according to a social media post by Vantara on March 8, 20 of the 50 leopards may have already reached the rescue centre.Vantara earlier claimed in a statement on March 7 that it had offered support after the state government requested it. It quoted a 2011 study from Maharashtra that said that translocating leopards from conflict areas back into the wild is not effective; and that it can actually increase human-leopard conflict.However, this does not mean that leopards that are involved in human-leopard conflict have to be captured. In fact, capturing the animals and keeping them in captivity comes with numerous other concerns, the same study notes. Wildlife biologists also told The Wire that some leopards can indeed be captured – but only in very specific cases.Several studies recommend implementing mitigation measures, including encouraging social acceptance of carnivores sharing the same space, to tackle human-leopard conflict.50 leopards from Maharashtra to VantaraThe Maharashtra forest department made the decision to send 50 leopards to Vantara “to strengthen conservation efforts for the big cats while also addressing concerns related to increasing human-leopard interactions in parts of Maharashtra”, the PTI report, quoting unnamed sources close to state forest minister Ganesh Naik, said.Human-leopard interactions (also called conflicts) stem from leopards and people using the same areas and can include leopards preying on livestock and dogs. In some instances, it can include leopards attacking people when sudden, unexpected encounters happen.The decision to transfer 50 leopards to Vantara was allegedly finalised after discussions between state forest minister Ganesh Naik and the Vantara management, according to PTI. Unnamed sources also told PTI that more details about the timeline and modalities of transferring the leopards are expected to be finalised by the forest department in coordination with the facility’s management.But it appears that the ‘modalities’ are finalised: on March 8, Vantara posted a video on social media in which Vantara employees are heard saying that 20 leopards from Junnar are arriving at the rescue center on the same day (March 8).“For these animals it is more than just a relocation,” an unnamed Vantara employee says in the video. “We have prepared a spacious enriched home designed to support their recovery and well being.”Their “new homes” have been filled with plantations like sugar cane to mimic their original environment in Junnar, he said.‘Offered support on request of state government’“Vantara has offered support to the Maharashtra Forest Department by providing long-term care for around 50 leopards captured from human-wildlife conflict areas, following a request from the state government,” Vantara’s statement on social media said.The statement claimed that leopard populations have increased across India over the past few decades. And that as landscapes change and settlements expand, encounters between people and leopards are becoming more frequent.“Mitigating this conflict has become one of the most complex challenges of recent times. Research has shown that relocating leopards from conflict areas back into forests is not effective. A landmark study by Athreya et al., 2011 found that reactive solutions to attacks on humans by leopards such as translocation, could in fact increase human-leopard conflict. Leopards captured during conflict often arrive severely traumatised and under stress after weeks and months spent in small holding cages. They require long-term care, psychological assessment and specialised veterinary care by experienced wildlife teams so they can gradually return to health and trust humans.At Vantara, these leopards will receive specialised veterinary and behavioural care designed to address the stress and trauma caused by conflict and prolonged confinement. With space, enrichment and continuous monitoring by experienced veterinarians and caregivers. For Vantara, welfare of animals is paramount, and every life matters.”But there’s more to itThe landmark study that the Vantara statement refers to does indeed say that translocating leopards (capturing and releasing them elsewhere) is a bad idea. The study analysed the movements of 29 radio-collared leopards in rural areas of Junnar in Maharashtra (the same area in the state from where the 50 leopards going to Vantara originate), and found that leopard attacks on people increased nearly four fold in the area where they were released.“Our results show that reactive solutions to attacks on humans by leopards, such as translocation, could in fact increase human-leopard conflict,” the study, authored by wildlife scientists Vidya Athreya and others including renowned scientist Ullas Karanth, who has studied carnivores, including tigers, across India in great detail, notes.But there’s more.The study does not explicitly suggest that leopards should be captured.“Maintaining animals caught in the wild for life creates economic, logistical and animal-welfare problems,” it says.Ideally, mitigation methods are the way to go, the study recommends:“Our results show that leopards lived in densely populated areas in Junnar with relatively few attacks on people until translocations began. Therefore, we believe it is possible to base a management strategy on conflict mitigation,” the authors note.Better compensation strategies and social acceptance of leopards living in the area will help tackle human-leopard conflict in Maharashtra, the experts note in their study:“Measures to reduce human-carnivore conflicts may include more effective compensation procedures to pay livestock owners for the loss of animals to predation by carnivores, providing better methods of protection for livestock and encouraging greater social acceptance of the presence of carnivores in human-dominated landscapes,” they write.Going by these recommendations, the Maharashtra Forest Department should not ideally have captured these leopards in the first place – unless it had very good reason to.Capture – but only in specific casesAnd that can happen in some cases.Targeted removal of individuals responsible for human deaths is generally recommended from the perspective of managing adverse outcomes between people and large carnivores, commented wildlife biologist Aritra Kshettry of WWF-India, who has studied human-leopard interactions in West Bengal.“But large scale capture does not make sense if the population is anyway connected to a larger meta population, as the empty niches will be quickly colonised by new individuals,” he told The Wire.The sugarcane fields of Junnar and some human settlements in it are part of the Junnar Forest Division, which comes under the Pune Forest Circle. The Division also adjoins the Kalsubai-Harishchandragad Wildlife Sanctuary to the northwest and Bhima-Shankar Wildlife Sanctuary to the west.Map of the Junnar Forest Division, published in a 2023 study that analysed human-leopard conflict in the area. Source: Badhe and Jabhaye 2023.Human-leopard conflict management guidelines developed by Athreya and Aniruddha Belsare (who has also studied this issue in detail) in 2007 also say that leopards can be captured if there are attacks on people. But it comes with a clear note:“It is important that the Forest Department’s field staff, public and the media are made aware of the complexities of the conflict issue so that spontaneous and often arbitrary demands for trapping of leopards is reduced.”The guidelines also specify that the law (the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972) requires “stringent conditions to be fulfilled” before trapping a Schedule I species like the leopard.“The legal interpretation of Section 11 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 has been provided by Supreme Court Advocate on environment issues – Mr Ritwick Dutta (Dutta et al. 2004) as ‘Attacks on livestock (categorised as property) or sighting of a leopard do not justify the trapping of a Schedule I species as per the Section 11 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972,” the guidelines warn.So why were these leopards captured from Junnar in the first place? Did these individuals have a history of human attacks? And why are they being transferred to Vantara, and not any other rescue centre? The Wire has written to the Maharashtra Forest Minister Ganesh Naik and Chief Secretary (Forests). This story will be updated when a response is received.Mitigation measures firstA study published in 2020 that analysed leopard captures and translocations in the neighboring state of Karnataka, which also witnesses negative human-leopard interactions, recommends improving the local acceptance of leopards in the landscape for the conservation of the big cat — to reduce not just translocations but also leopard captures.“Thus well-trained conflict response teams sponsored by the government or civil societies must handle emergency conflict situations when leopards come into highly human-settled areas, so unnecessary captures and translocation could be reduced,” the study notes. It also adds that “public outreach activities should also educate local social and political leaders against pressuring for leopard captures”.The study does note that in some cases, “some form of selective removal” might be necessary – like Kshettry mentioned.More recent studies underline the importance of studying the role of other factors that contribute to increased man-leopard interactions in a specific area. For instance, locals at two locations in the Indian Himalaya believe that the decline in wild prey was the primary driver of human-leopard conflicts in their regions. Scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India who studied this in Pauri Garhwal and northern West Bengal published these findings in their study in 2018.In Junnar too, the 2023 study that analysed human-leopard conflict in the area notes how a report submitted by Athreya and Belsare in 2004 to the Maharashtra Forest Department showed that “heavy human interference, primarily hunting, firewood gathering, forest fires, and deforestation”, have resulted in most of the leopard’s common prey species becoming “locally scarce or extinct”. The 2023 study also quotes a study in 2021 that suggests that increasing frequency of human-leopard conflict in the area during the last decade “could be due to a decline in potential habitats” and “scarcity of wild prey, leading leopards to feed predominantly on domestic species.”Activists question need for transfer to VantaraStalin Dayanand, founder of Mumbai-based NGO Vanashakti, who has fought long court cases to save wild lands in and around Mumbai including Aarey Forest, suspects that this is the capture and transfer of leopards to rescue centres is a ploy to bring in investors into wild lands and habitats.Leopards in Aarey, Mumbai, July 2020. Photo: Ranjeet Jadhav/AareygpMany infrastructure projects are coming up in forests and wildlife habitats, and this is not a coincidence, said Dayanand.“It is part of the plan to pass on ownership of forests to private individuals,” he told The Wire. “Be it mining, farm houses, resorts…everything is being made inside the forests. When there are predators in the forest the land becomes less attractive for investors. So the best way is to remove the carnivores.”Instead of improving the wildlife habitat, Vantara offers a profitable solution to the “investor lobby”, he added. “The forest department which is supposed to protect wildlife has abandoned its duty and is meekly following orders of an intensive ruthless government.”Numerous reactions have also surfaced on social media, with conservationists and activists questioning the need for the transfer of leopards to Vantara.“Maharashtra should release a detailed profile of each leopard it wants to relocate with reasons,” commented researcher, conservationist and writer Neha Sinha in a social media post.“Wild animals are not political gifts or corporate assets to be transferred at will. Leopards belong to their forests, their territories, and the ecosystems that shaped them, not to private enclosures built for spectacle. This is not even funny anymore,” commented environmentalist Vimlendu Jha in a social media post.Others expressed no surprise at how the government has been “taken over”.Government has been taken over in real time.No pretence even anymore.Congratulations everyone 👏 https://t.co/ehmNsP9FJa— Sandeep Manudhane (@sandeep_PT) March 7, 2026Nothing about Vantara surprises or shocks me after the manner in which Indian Supreme Court closed the proceeding even before it even began to protect a private zoo inaugurated by the Prime Minister and owned by India’s richest man https://t.co/h7i1EDDJbD— Ashish Goel (@ashish_nujs) March 7, 2026Maharashtra Govt sending 50 Leopards to Ambani’s Vantara in GujaratFirst they sent Elephant, now LeopardsWhy sending one by one, just give them control of entire forests of India at once & finish it 🤡 https://t.co/mzFO5fh7gO— Veena Jain (@Vtxt21) March 7, 2026Vantara, the rescue centerThe leopards from Maharashtra that arrive at Vantara will join at least 10,360 other animals – a recent Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) report pegs this number at more than 41,000 – across 345 species, amassed from across the world.In 2024 and 2025, several investigative news reports alleged that wild animals have been sourced from their natural habitats to meet Vantara’s demand for ‘rescued’ wildlife, and that this was spurring the illegal trade in wildlife. Vantara, in a statement to The Wire, had called these allegations “baseless” and “misleading”.In August last year, the Supreme Court heard a petition questioning Vantara’s operations, including the transfer of captive elephants to the rescue center. In a matter of days, the court put together a committee to look into it. In less than a month, the committee filed its report, and the apex court declared that Vantara had not committed any illegalities in its operations or functioning, and that all allegations levelled against it, including those around illegal smuggling of wildlife, fudged import permits and financial impropriety, were baseless. The report by the committee, however, was not made public.In November last year, CITES investigated animal transfers at Vantara and recommended that India should not import endangered wildlife anymore until it conducts ‘due diligence’ while issuing permits and implements several recommendations to this effect.Again, in less than a month, CITES reversed its decision.The Wire has reached out to Vantara about the transfer of 50 leopards from the Maharashtra Forest Department to the rescue centre. The story will be updated if a response is received.